Amazons

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a nation of fierce female warriors,
descendants of Ares, the god of war. The Amazons were usually pictured
fighting on horseback with bows and arrows, spears, and axes and carrying
a crescent-shaped shield.

Scholars disagree on the meaning of the name
Amazon.
Some say that it means "breastless." This comes from the
belief among the Greeks that the Amazons cut off the right breast of each
girl so that she could handle a bow and arrow more easily. Other scholars
believe that the name may mean "without grain" (or bread)
and may have come from the Greek word for barley,
maza.
They reason that the Amazons, as hunters, ate only meat and did not make
bread.

Origins.
The legendary Amazons, an all-female society, lived in southern Russia or
northern Asia Minor*. From time to time, the women had relations with men
from surrounding tribes and bore children. The Amazons kept and raised
only the girls, killing or making slaves of the male children or sending
them to their fathers.

The legend of the Amazons may have come from the possibility that women in
some ancient societies took part in battle. In many

*
See Names and Places
at the end of this volume for further information.

cases, these were
matriarchal
societies, in which a family's name and property passed down through the
mother's side of the family. To the Greeks, with their
patriarchal
society, this practice seemed unnatural and barbaric. They therefore
created stories about fierce, man-hating women. In many Greek tales, the
Amazons are defeated and killed by male warriors as punishment for taking
a role considered appropriate only for men.

In this painting from the 400s
B
.
C
., two Amazons attack a male soldier. A warlike tribe of women, the
Amazons were thought to be descendants of Ares, the Greek god of war.

Amazon Legends.
The Amazons appeared frequently in Greek myth and legend. One of the 12
labors of Hercules* was to capture the belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyta.
When Hercules reached the land of the Amazons, Hippolyta received him
warmly and agreed to give him her belt. But Hera, queen of the gods,
convinced the rest of the Amazons that Hercules was kidnapping Hippolyta,
and they took up arms and attacked him. Believing the queen had tricked
him, Hercules killed her before sailing back to Greece with the belt.

In another Greek tale, the hero Theseus* attacked the Amazons and carried
off their queen. The Amazons responded by going to war against Athens, but
Theseus defeated them after a terrific struggle.

During the Trojan War*, the Amazon queen Penthesilea brought extra troops
to help the Trojans after the death of the warrior Hector*. For this, the
Greek hero Achilles* killed her and then fell in love with her corpse. The
Amazons also appear in works by the Greek writers Herodotus and
Apollodorus.

The Slavic Amazons

Powerful female warriors also appeared in the folktales of Slavic
peoples from southeastern Europe. Led by the warrior Vlasta, these women
lived in a castle by the Vltava River. They were aggressive not only in
their battles with men but also in their pursuit of them. In one story,
Šarka, one of these women, fought the Slavic hero Dobrynia. She
grabbed him by his hair, pulled him off his horse, and put him in her
pocket She released him only after he promised to marry her. In most of
the stories, the female warriors ended up either dead or married to a
hero.

matriarchal
describing a society in which women hold the dominant positions

patriarchal
describing a society in which men hold the dominant positions

The legend of the Amazons lived on long after the time of the ancient
Greeks and Romans. In the 1500s, the Spanish explorer Francisco de
Orellana claimed to have met a tribe of female warriors while exploring
the Marañon River in South America. He supposedly renamed the river
the Amazon in their honor. To this day, aggressive women are often
referred to as Amazons.